I consider myself very lucky when in March of 2008 I purchased this Brazilian Raintree from Erik Wigert for an extremely reasonable price. He had just acquired this tree along with many others from a gentleman who retired from bonsai due to health reasons. Since Erik did not have much time invested in the tree he let it go for what I consider cheap. It was definitely an ugly duckling at the time. It had large wounds from pruning cuts that Erik had just made and the foliage was fairly sparse but it just needed TLC. Flash forward to almost exactly 4 years to date and the tree has come a long way. All the large cuts have since completely healed, the tree has grown significantly and was placed in an oval Sara Rayner pot. I have to significantly cut it back on a yearly basis because it is such an aggressive grower. Here are the before and after pictures. Enjoy

Good find, nice roots and trunk. I Just bought one of Erik's Raintrees myself and in working on the tree today I noticed just how hard he was pruning in order to try to maintain the taper. You've done good service by this tree.-Jay

It is not the lighting Dario but I do need to do some additional pruning. I realized after I took the photo yesterday that the first branch on the left is not visible. This first branch has tripled in girth since I purchased the tree and the wire marks have all but disappeared so it is an important part of the tree that needs to be displayed. Thank you